


valhalla

by owlinaminor



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4245081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Witness me.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	valhalla

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вальхалла](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4255722) by [Kalgary_Nurse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalgary_Nurse/pseuds/Kalgary_Nurse)



> the unofficial subtitle of this fic is: "I love nux's character development so much holy shit, and can you really blame him for being head-over-heels in love with capable? you can't. she is an actual goddess."
> 
> thanks to [becky](http://dicaeopolis.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing!

> “your face is where I see forever.” – “Transfiguration,” Jack Hirschman

All his life, Nux has wanted to Die Historic.

He matures in dark caves and bright sun, in war and madness.  Everything is a fight for the War Boys – a contest, for who can drive the farthest, learn the fastest, die the quickest.  His stomach is constantly growling, his throat is constantly scratchy, his eyes are constantly trying to see behind his back.  There is never quite enough of anything to go around.

Never enough of anything – except for the stories.  Late at night, the Boys gather around what dwindling light they can find and listen.  The oldest War Boys – the best drivers, the leaders, sometimes even the Imperators – tell tales of impossible glory, of battles that spent a hundred lives for five gallons of guzzoline, and brutal campaigns that lasted a week.  Their voices rise and twist and the world outside falls silent, as though every bird and insect for miles is listening, too.

Immortan Joe stands on the top of a cliff and shouts poetry about Valhalla – and it is beautiful poetry, sure, but it always seems larger than life to Nux.  For him, nothing feels more real than the war stories, the shadows dancing on cave walls and the heroes of old dancing in his imagination.

Nux closes his eyes and listens – and that is almost enough to fill his empty belly.

* * *

Nux trains to be the best driver the Citadel has ever seen.

He vows, every morning, to make today a lovely day.  He practices his grimace in the pool of water he guards, and in the shiny faces of the V8 he fixes until it is the perfect mix of terrifying and insane.  He spends hours in the hearts of engines, taking them apart and putting them back together until they sing, just for him.  He drives any wheel he can get his hands on.

His friends – the other War Boys in his squad – tease him for trying so hard, but they are not laughing when he is picked to ride out on a War Raid before any of them.  Nux clings to the backs of rigs, he nudges their engines to higher and higher speeds, and finally, he is allowed to drive.  The day he is told to pick his lancer is the best of his life.

Nux has seen so many War Boys taken by the Fury Road – their lips painted silver and voices raised in blazes of glory, bright explosions that flare for a second before vanishing.  He has Witnessed so many passages from this world to the next that he fears he will forget all of their names.  But he remembers, because he must – bangs his head against the cold floor and shouts at his mind until he can picture every face, every Ride Eternal.  He must remember.  If the War Boys are not remembered, they cannot remain with the gods in Valhalla.

Nux knows that he will die on the Fury Road, as surely as he knows that his two hands can drive any rig.  His destiny is to bring glory to Immortan Joe, just like his brothers before him.  It never occurs to him that his half-life might end some other way – no other half-lives do.  They are born, they fight, they die, and they live eternal.

Nux can only hope that his Ride will be glorious, shiny and chrome.  That it will be worth witnessing.

* * *

When the day comes that the Wives are stolen, Nux knows somehow – feels it in his empty belly and his aching chest – that this day will be _his day_.  He drives a machine that can catch up to the War Rig.  He has a lancer that can burn down any enemy.  He has a soul determined to reach Valhalla.

Who cares that he can barely stand?  Strap a blood-bank to the front of his car, get mad full-life blood running through his veins, and he is _ready_.  He is _sure._  He grabs a full can of chrome paint and puts it in near his seat – easily within reach.

Immortan Joe looks at him, _right at him_ , and he has never felt more alive.

Three times the gates of Valhalla are opened to him, and three times he fails.

The first time, he thinks he must have made a mistake.  So many War Boys go down in that storm – snuffed out like candle flames or blown away like sand in the wind.  He watches them as they are carried up, up, and swiftly back down – he Witnesses their ride to Valhalla.  When he awakes to find he hasn’t joined them, he wonders what he did wrong.  But then – his blood-bank would not have Witnessed, would not have remembered.  His death would have been for nothing.  Some twist of god or fate is giving him a second change.   _What a lovely day._

The second time, he begins to doubt.  But he forgives himself still – tells himself that he must be saved for some higher purpose, that there is still some fire left in his flare.  He gets so close to the Wives, close enough to _touch_ , and surely their beauty is some kind of omen for glory to come.  He does not despair, when they leave him gasping in the dust, their words of defiance spinning in his head.  He caught up to the War Rig once.  He can do it again.

The third time, he knows he has failed.  Immortan Joe himself sends him on his Ride, anoints him with chrome from his own can, trusts him to bring back his property – and Nux cannot even get into the Rig.  He fails before he has a chance to prove himself worthy.  All he can do is cling to the Rig and crawl to the back, cowardly as an insect.  He hides in the lookout post, knows he doesn’t deserve to look upon Immortan Joe again.

His Ride was supposed to be shiny.  Shiny, and chrome, and Eternal – like his brothers.  But it was all scratches and reaches and _not quite close enoughs_.  He has failed, he has failed, he has failed.

* * *

Nux bangs his head against the floor, a painful drum beat.  Perhaps, if he regrets his failure enough, some god will take pity upon him and strike him down where he sits.  If he is not shiny or chrome, he is not worth the grease rubbed into his skin.  If he is not shiny or chrome, he is not worth the sand trapped between his toes.  If he is not shiny or chrome –

She appears.

She stands beneath the horizon like a watchful angel, goggles strapped to her forehead and skirt billowing in the breeze.  He knows what she is, but he knows not who she is, or why she has come to him now.  When she turns to look at him, his world stops.

And she – she is not shiny, she is not chrome.  She is the mist early in the morning as pinks and reds rise over the horizon.  She is the hazy sun emerging shyly after a rainstorm.  She is the soft edges illuminating the first twilight star.

Surely she should throw him off the rig, and yet she lies down beside him and listens to his frantic voice.

He should have died.  He should’ve –

“I say, it was your Manifest Destiny not to,” she tells him.

And with those words, it is as though she’s washing him clean of all that has come before.  All the hard hours studying engines, all the long nights without food, all the friends he misses so desperately – they are pushed softly out, wounds sealed with cool, clean water.  His war paint is wiped away.

She lies down beside him and tells him new stories.  Stories of her life in Immortan Joe’s private chambers, stealing the smallest scraps of freedom and companionship with her Sisters.  Stories of her life before she was taken, traveling the Salt with a tiny family that smiled and laughed and helped where they could.  Stories of the history she learned from Miss Giddy, and the skills she learned from Furiosa, and the injustice she learned from Immortan Joe.

She tells him new stories, and the new stories sit down in Nux’s mind, settle in beside the tall tales of burning glory he remembers from years past.  The new stories wash away the sharp edges of the old, wipe them clean, until he thinks that perhaps there is more to life than fighting and dying.

Seven thousand days of half-life, and for the first time, listening to this girl, he can truly rest.

* * *

Capable is as un-shiny as a person can be, and yet Nux feels for her.

She tells him her name after her final story.  Throws it up in the air, casual, as though it isn’t a gift he will cherish forever.  She returns to the front of the rig, and he whispers it to himself.   _Capable.  Capable.  Capable._

He feels for her.  It’s not a feeling he knows how to name – not anger or hunger or pain but something softer, kinder.  It’s something between the affection he feels for his squad and the admiration he once felt for Immortan Joe.  And yet she is nothing like Old Joe – she is compassionate and forgiving, qualities any War Boy would have been beaten for daring to exhibit.

Nux wants – he wants to protect her.  He knows she’s smart and strong and can take care of herself, but still he wants to save her from any dangers that might come close.  He wants to sit near her and listen to her stories until she has no more to tell.  He wants to watch her, witness the delicate choreography of her fingers and the fiery sunset of her hair.  He would follow her, he thinks – follow her to the ends of the earth, if she only asked him.

Nux stands watch in the back of the Rig, looking out for pursuers who might be his former brothers, and he wonders at this new feeling.  This new feeling, one he doesn’t know how to name or voice, but one that is blossoming in his chest all the same.

He doesn’t know how to put words to this feeling, so instead, he tries to show her.  He drives the War Rig in what feels like the wrong direction.  He points ahead the way to safe ground.  He defies the man he’s followed his entire half-life.

“He wants to help,” Capable yells to Furiosa.  She has faith in him, and he will do his best to earn that.

Nux doesn’t know how his heart switched so quickly from following a white-painted war leader to following a band of running women (and one mad man.)  All he knows is that when – in an act of stupid bravery – he presses his lips to Capable’s cheek, the sensation of her closeness is enough to keep his demons at bay for hours.

* * *

“Do you think we live again, once this life’s over?” he asks her.

They are perched on the back of the idle War Rig, the machine resting from its long, hard journey.  Beneath them, the Vuvalini are having quiet conversations with the other Wives – Sisters, Capable calls them her Sisters.  Furiosa and her Fool sit watch by the side of the Rig, although it seems hard to imagine anyone coming for it this far out.

And above them, the sky stretches eternal, dark and deep.  For the first time in his half-life, Nux looks, really _looks_ , at the little pinpricks of light sprinkled across the sky.  (Capable calls them stars.)

“The War Boys believe in Valhalla, right?” she says.  “Some big hall where you feast with your heroes for all time.”

Nux nods.  “That’s what they always told us.  The stories made Valhalla sound so incredible, shiny and chrome, all I wanted was to get there.”  He watches the stars, wondering how they can be so many and so far away.  “But then, I realized, none of the War Boys who told us about it had ever really been to Valhalla.  How do they know it’s like they say it is?  How do they even know it exists?”

Capable considers that for a moment, then says, “I think they just believe.  And that’s not exactly a bad place to believe in – heroes, glory, reward for the hard life you’ve had.”

“But it made us weak!” Nux practically shouts.  He punches the metal beneath him, making the whole structure shake.  “It made us follow him – live and die for him, ‘cause he was our savior.  Valhalla is _his_ place.  How can that be a _good_ place?”

Capable looks Nux in the eyes – takes his face in her hands and insists that he meet her gaze.  “Hey,” she says.  “Hey.  The very fact that you’re asking these questions means that you aren’t following him blindly anymore.  It means that there’s hope.”

Nux’s breathing slows, and he sits back against the rig.  She’s right.  Of course she’s right.  There’s hope.

He sits with her for a minute, wondering at this concept of _hope_ , before he says, “Okay, but – I wanted to know what _you_ believe in.  You still haven’t answered me.”

“Oh.  Well,” she begins slowly, “I used to believe in these places I read about in one of Miss Giddy’s books – Heaven and Hell.  All good people go to Heaven, and all bad people go to Hell.  And I thought everyone – Joe and his sons and all men, everyone except my Sisters and Miss Giddy and Furiosa – was going to Hell.  But then, yesterday, watching all those War Boys giving up their half-lives for nothing I thought ... I thought, it can’t be all black and white like that.  Nobody deserves punishment for eternity.”

Nux listens to her, trying to understand.  He’s never read any books, or had any learning besides engines and driving and fighting, but he thinks he gets what she’s saying, even if it only makes him more confused.

“Then where _do_ we go when we die?” he asks.

Capable shrugs, and fidgets with her goggles.  (They were his, once, but they’re hers now.  They look better on her.)  “I don’t know.  Maybe there’s nothing.  Maybe there’s Hell.  Maybe there’s Valhalla.  Or maybe there are a thousand different places, and where you go depends on what you believe.”

“I like that,” Nux says.  “I still want to go to Valhalla, even if it’s a lie Joe told us.  Because if it exists, my brothers will be there.  I want to see my brothers again.  And I want eternal feasting.  I want to not be hungry.”  He pauses for a moment, then adds, “Is that bad?”

“No, it’s not bad,” Capable replies, decisive.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes.  And Nux feels – he feels as though he’s been entrusted with this incredibly precious thing, and he shouldn’t move lest he break it, but he also feels as though she fits there, the red of her hair against the white of his skin.  And he feels as though perhaps she is the one entrusted, and he the breakable thing.  And he feels as though he is the luckiest War Boy to ever drive out of the Citadel.

She is not a thing.  Neither is he.  And there are tiny lights in the sky that seem to be shining just for them.

* * *

He is Awaited at Valhalla for the fourth time, but this time, he does not paint his lips.  He has no time for it, no paint, and no need.

His end does not need to be shiny or chrome – his world is spun in new hues now.  His Ride will be red.  Red as fire, red as sunset, red as the color of her hair.

“Go.  Once you’re across, I’ll jam the pedal and follow you,” he tells her.  But he knows – and he thinks she knows, too, as her wide eyes stare into his – that he won’t follow her.  He can’t.

Somebody needs to drive the War Rig.  Somebody always needs to drive the War Rig, even as it races towards its death.  They will go together, the Rig and Nux – and he is honored, to ride out of this world on such a marvelous beast.

But he is more honored to ride out of this world saving her.

Honored to be saving the others, too – Furiosa will be a brave leader, the Dag will plant new gardens, the Vuvalini will blast any rebels into submission – but none more than Capable.  He will save her, and she will return to the Citadel and teach other War Boys that life is more than fighting and dying.  He will save her, and she will convince people kindly that they can be better than they are.  He will save her, and she will laugh, and smile, and live.  He will save her.

_Witness me_ , he calls to her – with his voice or with his eyes, he doesn’t know.  She hears him nonetheless, and she Witnesses him.  She reaches out her hand – he turns the wheel as hard as he can.  ( _One more contest won.)_

He will save her.

If that isn’t enough to get him past the gates of Valhalla, he doesn’t want to go there.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about this brilliant movie on [tumblr](http://gratuitytuccci.tumblr.com/).


End file.
